The Two-Way

3:18 pm

Thu September 26, 2013

Scientists Find Sea Louse Has Tidal 'Body Clock'

One thing you can say about the diminutive speckled sea louse: it's always on time.

Scientists studying the tiny crustacean, a marine cousin of the wood-louse, found that it runs not one, but two internal clocks. Not only does the creature have a circadian rhythm, or so called "body clock" like most land-dwelling animals, including humans, but it also has a circatidal clock that follows the 12.4-hour cycle of the tide.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, researchers from Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cambridge and Leicester Universities confirmed the existence of the second clock by observing the behavior of the speckled sea louse.